Mother of truant daughter jailed

Dawn Joyce had been convicted before, the council said

A woman has been jailed for two weeks after failing to make her 14-year-old daughter attend school.

Dawn Joyce, 40, was jailed after magistrates in Wolverhampton heard her daughter had missed 90 days of school between January and June this year.

The court heard that the girl had offered a variety of excuses, including not liking her hair or Mondays.

Joyce, of Alderford Close, Pendeford, said she had done everything she could to get her daughter to go to school.

The case, brought by Wolverhampton City Council, heard that the teenager refused to attend any lessons at all on Mondays at the King's School in Tettenhall.

She also failed to turn up because she did not like the colour that she had dyed her hair and on one occasion refused to leave home because there were cat hairs on her trousers.

'Every imaginable strategy'

District Judge Shamim Qureshi told Joyce that although her daughter was largely to blame, he hoped that by sending her to prison the family would realise that things had to change.

A city council spokesman said it was Joyce's second conviction for failing to get her daughter to attend school.

He added that officials were meeting the teenager to try to persuade her to go back to education.

In a statement released after the court case, the school's assistant principal Barbara Easton said: "We are sad the situation came to this.

"We've worked very creatively with the family and used every imaginable strategy to get the girl to go to school, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the parents."

The girl is now being cared for by relatives.

Joyce is expected to be released from prison within a week.